


One Good Memory

by goldfishoflove



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meditation, Memory, arguably infidelity but the circumstances make that concept complicated, difficult conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 22:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17108915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfishoflove/pseuds/goldfishoflove
Summary: On the Day of Story & Song, Taako and Magnus remember what they used to be to each other. It's a lot to reconcile with what's happened to them since then.





	One Good Memory

Taako sat cross-legged on the skylight, staring down into the darkness blanketing Faerun. Here and there it was dotted with the lights of towns, but just as often there was smoke, or open flame, or an empty gash where he knew there should have been brightness. The world was wounded. At least the world was asleep.

By the time they’d gotten back to the Bureau, it was already after midnight. Just being in the dorm again felt sort of surreal. A short elevator ride away, on the surface of the moon base, the ground was still littered with shattered glass and shards of black opal. The bodies had been cleared, but there was still blood on the grass of the quad, and a sad stillness in the air. Down here, everything was where they left it, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened today.

So much had happened today.

Magnus went to bed immediately when they got back. Taako didn’t say anything to stop him, but his eyes followed as Magnus closed his door without looking back. Merle stayed up chatting eagerly with Taako and Lup for a few minutes before they dropped a hint loudly enough that he excused himself, and then finally it was just the twins. They sat on the couch--well, he sat, and she floated--as he caught her up on the longest period they had spent apart in their entire lives. Or ever would again, he thought, and it was less a decision than an assertion to the universe. Never again.

He told her about Sizzle It Up and his early adventures for the Bureau, trailing off when she started to fill in details that she’d been able to hear from inside the Umbra Staff. She didn’t ask him about Magnus--or Kravitz, for that matter--and he didn’t ask if she was stuck as a specter forever now. They were Taako and Lup, so they found things to laugh about, and it helped. He didn't even complain when she left to be with Barry for the rest of the night. He of all people couldn’t begrudge them that.

With Lup gone, the common room was too dark and too quiet. Taako had yanked the rug off the skylight for the first time since they moved in, sat on the glass, and looked down. He wondered if Lup still meditated. Do liches need rest? Liches were a bit like living elves, he supposed: when they got frayed around the edges, they both sank into memory to restore themselves. He hoped Lup was remembering something nice tonight. Taako closed his eyes.

As he relaxed, he sifted reflexively through his memories, searching for a good day to relive for a while as he rested. That used to be easy enough. Skip pretty much anything from childhood, and most of his time with Sazed, just to be on the safe side. Skip all the times he'd almost died, or one of his friends had. His most treasured moments were surrounded by fear: his first date with Kravitz, then almost shooting him. Saving Magnus from oblivion just to watch his body get destroyed. A few bright spots floated in between--calm training days at the Bureau, shopping trips in Neverwinter--nothing to write home about, but good enough to sink into for a few hours and be refreshed. He managed.

Now there were tens of thousands of days to choose from. The first time he stepped onto the Starblaster and the awe of what they were about to do set in. Reviewing the animal language with Magnus before his meeting with the Power Bear. Scrapping in Jaden Province with Lup. Surfing. The party for Magnus’s winning team in Tesseralia. (Dammit.) Late nights in easy cycles, when the whole crew was together and happy, drinking and laughing and trading stories. Sneaking off between rehearsals at the conservatory. (Stop it.) The first time he and Magnus had-- ( _Stop_ it.)

Taako opened his eyes. Smoke drifted by below the skylight.

 

Taako’s ears twitched at the soft brush of a door on carpet. A few seconds later, Magnus emerged from the hallway carrying an empty glass and trailing his other hand along the wall. He was darkblind, navigating by touch. Taako stayed quiet, but when Magnus noticed the faint glow of the skylight he stopped and stared.

“Taako? What are you doing up?”

Ah. Of course. He was silhouetted over the glass. “You forget I don’t sleep?” Taako flinched at his own word choice.

“No, I …” Magnus sounded defensive. “You just usually … um.” He fiddled with the glass, set it down. “Are you okay?”

Taako snorted before he could stop himself. “Am I _okay_? I’ve been better.”

“I’m sorry, hon, I--” Magnus froze. Taako looked up sharply, a dozen more memories crashing into his mind just hearing the pet name. Magnus looked so strange in the dimness. His hair was a little longer than it was supposed to be, his skin more scarred, his muscles more compact. Taako’s head was full of memories of a Magnus that he’d had time to memorize every inch of. This one was older, and more tired, but still gut-wrenchingly handsome.

Magnus sighed. “I’ve had … a couple more days than you to get used to it. Since Lydia … you know. In Wonderland.”

Taako frowned. “You knew. This whole time.” He levitated to standing height and dropped smoothly onto his feet. “And you didn’t say anything.”

“Uh, I was a mannequin.”

“We had the telepathy thing.” Taako gestured irritably.

“... I was a _mannequin_.” Magnus stared at him. “I couldn’t fight, I couldn’t talk, I was so _fragile_. What would you have done if I told you?”

Taako screwed his eyes shut. “What about tonight? You knew that I knew!”

“Yeah,” Magnus said, “And I also know about you and Kravitz.”

Taako’s eyes snapped open. “I’m sorry, are you upset about _Kravitz_? You got _married_.”

And just like that, all the air in the room was gone. Silence pooled around them in its place. Taako glared into the eyes of his lover, his partner, his friend. Then he looked away.

Magnus opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. “I … I’m not going to apologize for that,” he said finally. “It wouldn’t be honest. Or fair. To either of you.”

Taako nodded slowly, face stony. It was a stupid question, but something raw inside him had to hear it. “Did you love her?”

Magnus barely let him finish. “Of course I loved her.”

Taako hated how small his voice sounded. “Like you loved me?”

Magnus took a deep breath. In and out. “Like I loved you in the beginning,” he said. “Back when a year was a long time.”

A sharp laugh died on Taako’s lips. That felt like a lifetime ago. It was, he remembered suddenly, for Magnus. Most humans were lucky to get eighty years; Magnus was over a hundred and thirty. He had spent what must have felt like an entire life with Taako, then begun another with Julia. Now he had yet another life still ahead of him.

“Do you love Kravitz?”

Taako blinked. Magnus’s voice was level, but he’d never had much of a poker face. He watched Taako with a crease in his brow.

The lie sat ready on Taako’s tongue. To anyone else--probably including Kravitz--he’d have spit it out. But this was Magnus, and their first real conversation in over a decade, and if he fucked this up it would be the last. Taako held the lie in his mouth until he couldn’t stand the taste any more, then swallowed it.

“Yes.”

Magnus took another slow breath. In; out. Taako stubbornly held his gaze until Magnus let his eyes drop to the floor.

“Well,” he said.

Taako’s stomach clenched. “Well what?”

“Well … that’s it, right?” Magnus smiled weakly. “That’s … where we stand.” He fidgeted: twisted his fingers together, reached for the glass, realized it was still empty, drew his hand back. When he finally turned and took a step back down the hallway, something wrenched in Taako's chest. Faster than he could think about it, he cried out,

“ _Wait_ , Mags.”

Magnus froze. He turned, and his eyes widened.

Taako had one arm outstretched, fingers bent to grasp even from the other side of the living room. He'd been holding himself in all night, but watching Magnus walk away had sapped the last of his energy. He was so fucking tired. Too tired to hide what he was feeling, or maybe just tired of hiding it. The glow of the skylight under his feet filled the pits of his eyes with sad shadows.

In three long strides, Magnus was across the room. He stopped just short of the edge of the skylight and pulled Taako into his arms, engulfing him in the soft fabric of his shirt and the heat of his chest. It wasn’t quite tight enough to squeeze the air out of Taako, but his breath rushed out of him anyway as he pressed his face into Magnus’s shoulder. His mind spun with memories of loneliness. Cold nights in a leaky wagon. Running from an atrocity even he believed was his fault. Scrambling for odd jobs, hiding his face, hiding his intellect so no one would feel threatened enough to lash out while he had no one to protect him.

“I _needed_ you.” Taako’s voice cracked. He felt Magnus’s shoulders sag around him.

“I know, I know.” Magnus wasn't even trying to hide his tears, of course he wasn't. “I'm sorry.”

It wasn't his fault. Taako knew that, but he couldn't quite find the words to say so, not when he was wrapped in those arms.

“Magnus …”

Magnus looked down at him instantly. He lifted a hand to cup the side of Taako’s face. “Yeah?”

Taako’s heart skipped a beat, looking up into those earnest eyes. Whatever he was going to say didn’t matter. Taako pushed himself up on his toes and kissed him.

Magnus gasped softly into his mouth but didn’t pull away. His surprise quickly gave way to tenderness, and he pressed a broad hand to Taako’s back. The way their lips fit together echoed back through a thousand kisses in Taako’s memory, from quiet and familiar to passionate to excited and all the way back to curious, hopeful, new. Those moments threaded together most of his life, one of the only things that had ever been consistent in it. Kissing Magnus felt like home.

Magnus reluctantly pulled away. He pressed a kiss to the top of Taako’s head and exhaled.

“I don’t … want to fuck things up for you,” he said quietly. “You and Krav have a good thing. And it’s not like I was--I haven’t been--”

Taako screwed his eyes shut in frustration. “I know, I know.” He pressed his face into Magnus. “I’ll talk to him. We’ll figure something out. I’m just--” He swallowed. “I’m fucking _done_ losing people.”

Magnus’s breath caught, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Same.” He gently combed his fingers through Taako’s hair. “Super same. And … whatever happens, I’m here now. Okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

Taako sighed. His voice was muffled by Magnus’s chest. “I know.” He wasn’t sure that he had known, before he said it, but it was true. Everything else changed, worlds came and went, but Magnus was steadfast.

 

It was almost dawn when Taako finally climbed into bed. He slid over towards the wall, making room, as Magnus’s weight tipped the edge of the mattress beside him. When Magnus lay down and turned onto his side, his body made a wall against the world, keeping everything outside the bed at bay. Taako curled up in that shelter and closed his eyes.

He remembered the first time they did this. Not the first time they kissed or had sex, but after both of those, the first time he slept with Magnus as his fortress. It was a bad year, and with three crewmates gone all of their hearts were running ragged. Taako showed up in Magnus’s cabin without warning or fanfare. He just crawled into his bed, and Magnus unquestioningly pulled him into his arms.

Taako let himself sink into the memory. Wrapped in that comfort, he felt his mind relax, and he drifted into meditation.


End file.
